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“There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind.”

~ Patrick Rothfuss

My sister turned crazy when she was eight.

I don’t know if it was because of our financial situation, the sick violent relationship between my parents, the constant isolation, or the combination of it all that drove her out of her mind. Or perhaps she was just born that way.

I can still remember the first time she showed an unusual display of behavior. It was the evening we acquired an electricity connection and I was happily reading a comic book under the light when I heard her reciting a multiplication table from the other room. There was something that wasn’t right the way she was doing it. The tone of her voice for one, and she kept repeating the damn thing over and over again but mixing the whole thing up! I thought: what’s the matter with her?

The same day, I woke up in the middle of the night and saw her posed over the sleeping body of our elder sister holding a scissor above her head ready to strike. I could understand. I could imagine myself doing it also for countless of reasons but we usually don’t act the things we imagine, do we?

The next day, she came home from school crying hysterically, quite beside herself mumbling about some accident on a national highway, dead, mutilated bodies strewn on the road, things like that… The funny thing is: there was no accident. Young as I was (two years older than her) I knew for a certainty that time that she lost it.

And it never stops. Then there was a decapitated head on the bridge, an occasion when she rode on top of a vehicle naked and bleeding, she tried to kill herself by slashing her wrists with a razor I had to carry her all the way down from the attic to the hospital. And all that because a guy didn’t fancy her. And the time she was raving mad and climbed over the gate of someone’s house shouting the name of the sophomore (who turned out to be gay) whom I didn’t realize she was in love with but the boy didn’t know she existed and why he should? He belongs to the upper middle class and from a prominent family in town, and who are we? In his eyes, we were just dust on the road. After the incident, more than ever.

Pity because my sister had and have still a brilliant mind.

She was a straight-A- student, even after that unfortunate incident with the gay sophomore, she finished the year with a gold medal. She is the most intelligent among us, the only one who has a magnificent voice she used to sing the solo in church and school choir. If I have a photographic memory, then she has the most advanced camera in her brain, the girl can recall every small detail of a long time ago which I have long forgotten. If I am a psychic then her power compares to mine is tenfold. Not only she can predict who is going to come on a certain day but she can tell you the exact time. She knows the name of every medicine known to man and can recite them in their generic names. I remember the time she went to a hospital and stole a lab coat and pretended she was a doctor. It took them a couple of days to find out the truth. She’s that good. She once worked in a law office as an assistant and she has no law degree or any education related to law. She attended high school only a year before they shifted her off to college and even there she excelled.

We tried to get her committed to a mental hospital but after every interview, the verdict was always the same: she’s not crazy but emotionally disturbed. She doesn’t belong to a loony bin. A fact she will gladly and readily use against anyone who dares to challenge her cranial capacity and state of mind. Whatever her real condition is, it hinders her to lead what society considers a “normal” life. She is not able to hold/sustain a relationship for a long period of time and take care of her children. She tried. Harder than any of us. She wants the kind of family we never had: functional, together, harmonious and loving. At the end, the continuous betrayals, the hard facts of life, the huge responsibilities of keeping a family proved to be too much for her; she left and lives a life of a drifter. She becomes homeless.

For some people perhaps she seems like someone who is a sexually delinquent person but the truth is she just wants love, attention, caring, warmth; all the things that have been denied to her all her life. My mother saw her as a nuisance, ugly (she doesn’t look like any of us and not charming but in my eyes, it doesn’t make her ugly) and always treated her with contempt. An attitude she extended to my sister’s children as well. I don’t understand.

For all the things she did out of the ordinary, there are two occasions that are engraved in my brain forever. One was when she jumped in pitch dark night into an excavation filled with coarse gravel straight through between barbwire fence and came out unscratched. The second was when we were in a bus traveling to the mental hospital and she squeezed herself through the window and jumped; landed on the highway, rolled over, stood up unharmed and started running away. Sometimes I think, she’s blessed in some other ways.

I don’t know where is now. It’s hard to keep track of her when she’s always moving around. I hope she’s doing okay despite everything. I love her. She’s the best among us. Good at heart and innocent. Yes. Innocent…

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Yes I hold grudges when the offense is very personal, mean, premeditated, evil, repeatedly done without asking for forgiveness and the outcome is life changing and not for the best.

I never forget. I am blessed/cursed with photographic memory and I am amazed to find out that after all these years words still have the power to hurt me.

Forgiving is depends upon the crime and how it is done. How can you forgive someone who says sorry for stepping on your toes but keep standing on them? How can You forgive people if they don’t ask forgiveness thinking it is their birthright to abuse you? How can you forgive someone when there is always something there to remind you of their cruel deed? How can you forgive your own blood for betraying you?

No. Some crimes don’t deserve forgiveness and some stay engraved in memory no matter how hard you try to forget them…

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The barbecue tasted great. The potato salad too. We sat in the garden enjoying the wine, his hand intertwined with mine. We looked into each other eyes, communicating without words. He was happy. I was happy. So were the bees and other insects around us, they zoomed tirelessly between flowers, collecting nectar. I laid my head on his shoulder, he gathered me into his arms. Together, we watched how nature works. We stayed there until late listening to the birds.

Autumn.

I was looking at the fire pit watching the flame. I lighted it earlier and sat in the gazebo waiting for him. He uncharacteristically late today. So, unlike him. The dinner I prepared and laid on the table turned cold, the candles had burned out. He finally came at eight looking different, haggard and somewhat worried. He sat opposite me and said he wanted a divorce. He is in love with someone else. Outside it started raining. Good. I didn’t have to water the plants.

Winter.

He’s gone. Packed his bags and left. He said he was going to stay in a hotel. I found out later that he moved in with her. I watched him marched through the garden with his suitcase. He stepped on my rose bushes on the way to his car. He probably didn’t notice they were there under the blanket of snow. I closed the curtain and laid in the dark.

I stayed there for days. Sometimes weeks, lying in my bed without moving. Standing up just to get more wine. And smoke. I took up smoking again. I found out cigarettes were a good substitute for food. It filled my stomach and quieted my nerves. A good companion during those dark long lonely cold days and nights. I took the phone off the hook and disabled the doorbell. I didn’t want to hear or see anyone. I just wanted him to come back and say he made a mistake. I waited in vain.

Spring.

I went outside and found out that crocuses and snowdrops had pushed through the layers of snow. A little farther, cyclamens were also putting a good show. So was the grape hyacinths. I lower myself to the ground and fingered them. Tough little flowers. Soon Dutch irises and narcissus will be joining their efforts and the garden will be alive again with a riot of colors. I smiled for the first time in months.

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We never had a real home or time to settle and grow roots. My memories of home are vague snippets of strange places with different people sometimes I doubt if they are real or imagined.

I never want to go abroad. It was never my dream. I was happy where I was.

When I was 17 I found myself in Europe. What a strange place. I can’t get used to the food and the weather. I came from the land of endless summer. Here, it is mostly cold, the trees bare and looking like Blair Witch Project.

For the first time I stayed longer in one place, twenty years.

Eleven years ago, I moved again. This time in an apartment. After 3 years I moved once more to a terraced town house. I stayed there for another three years before I settled in a six bedroom Edwardian house in the country. It took me five years to move to a suburban villa where I am currently living.

Last week I started looking for houses. I have appointments to view some of them this weekend. Yesterday I saw two and was disappointed.

I guess, I’m moving again.

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“In the hour after midnight, a man is more than the madness inherent in the sunless expanse of a night wired with creative storms, lightning strikes neon against a void of light as the writer casts words to page in fevered pace, morning a curse he awaits in sleepless states”

~from humble shadow

Who can relate to this? I think everyone who writes can. Why it is that great ideas come mostly during wee hours? I remember a saying that goes If we can only realize those ideas we have when we cannot sleep, everybody would be rich. Or something like that.

True isn’t it? I am more productive when I’m suffering from insomnia. I might be a walking dead, feeling like swimming in a thick syrup, living in a dream or in the outside looking in or inside looking out but those ideas come pouring in non stop.

Funny thing is, if we don’t record those thoughts while they are fresh, we tend to forget most of them the moment we sleep. We can still recall the concept, the gist of what it’s all about but not the exact genial arrangement of words. And anyone who writes knows that this is very important: arrangement of words. It affects the whole story and will determine the outcome of the final product.

I’m writing a book at this moment. After too much deliberation and waiting for years, my son finally convinced me to put my ideas on paper. Yesterday I was dead tired and couldn’t really write. Lying in bed, ideas for a crucial conversation between an important character and the leading role came to mind. I knew I had to write it down but I thought I know this scenario, I played it in my head countless times, I device this whole thing, how can I forget it? Wrong!

Today, trying to write the exact arrangement of words based on how I remember them prove to be difficult. It just didn’t flow naturally. It felt strained and forced. Like a rehearsed conversation between two bad actors. Too smooth, memorized, it just didn’t feel right.

You might say I learned my lessons by now. I thought so too. But speaking from experience, I know I will have those sleepless nights again full of brilliant ideas I am too lazy to record but will regret not doing so the next day.

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THE PAINT IN CHURCHES GETS WORN AWAY QUICKER THAN IN OTHER BUILDINGS. I THINK IT’S THE FRICTION OF THE SOULS. THEY GRIND THEMSELVES AGAINST THE CEILINGS AND WALLS.

IF I COULD REACH FOR SOMETHING BRILLIANT, THAT WOULD BE THE HOME WHICH BEEN DENIED TO ME AND THE PRESENCE OF THE PEACE I'VE NEVER KNOWN...

Why I write

I write to exorcise some ghosts (there are plenty) to make peace with my past, to keep sane, to let skeletons out the closet and occasionally let them dance naked, to vent. I write because I don’t know any better.

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Healology

“Growing up, I always had a soldier mentality. As a kid I wanted to be a soldier, a fighter pilot, a covert agent, professions that require a great deal of bravery and risk and putting oneself in grave danger in order to complete the mission. Even though I did not become all those things, and unless my predisposition, in its youngest years, already had me leaning towards them, the interest that was there still shaped my philosophies. To this day I honor risk and sacrifice for the good of others – my views on life and love are heavily influenced by this.”

― Criss Jami

Musing

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

“I have this strange feeling that I’m not myself anymore. It’s hard to put into words, but I guess it’s like I was fast asleep, and someone came, disassembled me, and hurriedly put me back together again. That sort of feeling.”

- Haruki Murakami

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

what are you afraid of?

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Introversion

“...I also believe that introversion is my greatest strength. I have such a strong inner life that I’m never bored and only occasionally lonely. No matter what mayhem is happening around me, I know I can always turn inward.”

what i’ve been doing…

We were born to be free, to expand our horizons by going where we have never gone before, and not to hang out in the relative comfort and safety of the nest, the known. There is a place within us that is courageous beyond our human understanding; it yearns to explore beyond the boundaries of our daily life.

- Dennis Merritt Jones

Once I had started my solitude, I realized anew that it was easy for me to become accustomed to this state and that the most effortless existence for me was in fact in one in which I was not obliged to speak to anyone. My fretful attitude to life left me. Each dead day had its charm.

- Yukio Mishima

It well may be,
That we will never meet again,
In this lifetime.
So let me say before we part,
So much of me,
Is made of what I learned from you.
You’ll be with me,
Like a handprint on my heart.
And now whatever way our stories end,
I know you have re-written mine,
By being part of my life…

I'm Michelle. This is my blog. I write about women and fatness, expound upon semi-coherent thoughts I have in the middle of the night, and offer tough love to those in whom I am disappointed; they are legion.